Workplace burnout can afflict employees in any industry, but in the healthcare sector, where professionals dedicate their lives to serving others, burnout is an all-too-common reality. According to a survey from The Physicians Foundation, 78% of physicians sometimes, often, or always experience feelings of burnout. But doctors aren’t the only ones — approximately one-third of all nurses experience symptoms of burnout and nearly 42% feel disengaged.
When healthcare clinicians experience burnout, patients suffer. In fact, physicians who experience burnout are twice as likely to report having made a medical error in the past three months and 44% of nurses fear their exhaustion impacts their patient care. At the core of these errors are poor decisions, the chances of which increase when we’re stressed. The more errors that are made, the more the healthcare organization as a whole suffers from low patient satisfaction ratings, ultimately impacting its bottom line.
